Dole claimants may have to work in community

10 reasons that the “work for dole” scheme is an odious idea.

1) The overwhelming majority of people on the dole paid PRSI for years before they became unemployed. It is not their fault that the government has blown ninety thousand million euros on bailouts and guarantee schemes and recapitalisation schemes for bankers. Forcing, at economic gunpoint, the weakest people in society to serve the political interests of the government is inequitable, and constitutes majoritarian tyranny against a weak demographic.

2) This scheme will not remove one single person from government dependency. The dole bill will still have to be paid, and this scheme will almost certainly cost more in administration than it will save in fraud reduction.

3) Such a scheme can only be fair if all 400,000 unemployed people are expected to partake in it. As is, 10% of unemployed people will be singled out for special treatment, leaving 360,000 lucky lottery winners free to continue as usual. Again, utterly inequitable.

4) Finding people with skills to work in the economy for less than those skills are worth fundamentally undermines the value of the skill for everyone. For example, if a community wants a project built, and an unemployed architect is assigned to them from this scheme, then architects in employment are missing out on work and fees, and the person working is being paid a pittance for their labour.

5) In the alternative, assigning people with general skills to activities for which they are not specifically qualified (for example, assigning a former secretary to work with the elderly) exposes the government to potentially huge liability in the event that unmotivated, unskilled workers make a mistake. Do we think that unmotivated, unskilled workers might make a mistake?

6) The idea that the purpose of such a scheme will be to crack down on fraud is a fundamentally disingenuous one. For starters, cracking down on fraud can be accomplished by allocating existing resources to that task (spotchecks + higher mandatory sentences). More importantly, if the scheme is limited to 10% of the unemployed, as news reports suggest, it will target only 10% of the fraud. This fact will be routinely ignored by the proponents of the scheme.

7) The added costs of compliance with such a scheme will be devastating for the unemployed. Are we going to pay for the childcare for a single mother who has to go out to work for a pittance? Are we going to pay transport costs? Or are we going to force people living below the poverty line to take a real terms cut in living standards for the sake of a cheap, populist, stunt?

8) By definition, most of the work will be pointless. “Work schemes” tend to create work for which there is no economic market – the idea that the hedgerows of ireland need trimming will be news to the average person living in rural Ireland, for example. If the work is meaningful, it will put existing people out of jobs (for example, repainting a school may be an idea the government has in mind, but what happens the local painter). If it is meaningless, then the scheme has no societal benefit at all.

9) Why wasn’t this scheme introduced in the boom? The answer? Because while there were many many jobs which could have been done by people on such a scheme because of the labour shortage, the people in office preferred to allow immigrants to do those jobs. At a time when it could have been imaginative, there was no imagination. Now, when it is mean spirited and pointless, there is no shortage of those traits in government.

10) The human reason. Contrary to the spin that this scheme will somehow be empowering, the only emotions this kind of work will arouse in your average unemployed accountant are those of humiliation, shame, and resentment.

It’s an odious idea, designed to win votes from grumpy taxpayers on the backs of the “lazy” unemployed, and to detract attention from the failings of government. It should be resisted fiercely.

I hate the idea of forcing people to work for their dole. It's the kind of nonsense that appeals only to tabloid-reading idiots and the kind of tedious, embittered cretins who whinge and moan endlessly about their taxes. If you don't like paying tax, quit your job and live (a life of total luxury, obviously) on €200 per week instead, you boring fucks.

However... if the government was to adopt a carrot, rather than a stick approach and create temporary community-based jobs (yes, actual jobs, rather than 'work-for-your-dole') for skilled people currently receiving unemployment payments, I wouldn't have any objections. It could be like a great big nationwide equivalent of a 'tidy towns committee', with unemployed architects, engineers, carpenters, bricklayers, etc being paid to make towns and villages more aesthetically pleasing, thus making the country a less shit place in the long-term and more attractive to tourists.

Anything which involves forcing the unemployed (most of whom - contrary to the kind of bullshit that crops up with monotonous regularity on AH - genuinely want proper jobs) into some half-arsed scheme, geared primarily towards demeaning them, is doomed to failure. It's nothing more than a right-winger's wet dream.

Collie D wrote: »

What experience would an out of work accountant or a recently graduated law student get from sweeping streets?

What experience would they get sitting at home?

This is a great idea, we all know an area local to us that needs tidying, graffiti removed, place swept, grass cut etc, weeds pulled put. Plus all work would be helping their town look nicer, that can only be a good thing.

The town where i live in, Balbriggan could do with a project like this, There should be a criteria of course, It should only be for long term unemployed, i.e pre 2007 dole claimants that have not done a tap.

chain gans FTW :pac:


Alan